


Always Tired

by ApexDisaster



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Drabble, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-05
Updated: 2016-08-05
Packaged: 2018-07-29 11:44:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 633
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7683226
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ApexDisaster/pseuds/ApexDisaster
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Shiro doesn't sleep much.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Always Tired

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote Shiro's PTSD how mine manifests in similar situations.

It had been a few hours now since Shiro had retired to his room, yet he was still laying on his back and watching the ceiling. He had lost sense of time about an hour back, just comfortable there listening to the sound of his breath and heartbeat; it was very pleasant. His eyes slowly started to drift close. He was more than tired, and thankful for the coming sleep. 

Just as his body began to relax with sleep, quiet footsteps came down the hall towards his door. When the footsteps stopped in front of his door, he bolted upright, eyes wide and body tensed. He was ready to run, or fight. 

He sat there, chest heaving and eyes darting around the room for several minutes. No more footsteps came though, no knock on the door, no sounds of breathing. 

His fingers drug through his long bangs as he stood, opening the door and looking into the hall. Much to his surprise, nothing was there, and only the dim lights of the night cycle shone. No one was there, no one had been there.

It took a couple of minutes for him to force himself to close the door and return to bed. He had just imagined it, again. But he could have sworn the metallic sounds of the footsteps had been real.

A half hour was spent on the edge of his bed, watching the door before he was able to lay back down. He was on his right side now, so that he would be able to open his eyes and see the door.

After another hour he was finally back asleep. There were brief happy dreams he would never be able to remember. A scream came and he jumped awake again, pulling on his armor suit before he ran into the hall. 

He opened every door in the hall, greeted with empty rooms. His eyes further widened in fear. Why we're they empty? They shouldn't be empty!

He began to head down the hall to get to the rest of the ship before a thought hit him.

“Shiro, take it easy.” He said aloud to himself. “Of course those rooms are empty. The rest of the paladins use rooms far away from yours.” He let out a stale, shaky laugh as he shook his head.

He sat down with his back against the wall as he breathed the panic away. Once he was calm he stood and walked to the training deck. He wasn't tired any more, despite having only slept for two hours. It was better to put this energy into something useful than let it go to waste.

\----

He sat at the dining table with the rest of the team that morning, and gave a wide yawn. 

“Geeze Shiro, you're always tired.” Pidge teased.

“Yeah! What do you do all night?” Lance said with a laugh.

Shiro just shrugged and laughed along. “We have been travelling a lot, have you all been sleeping? You know it's best to sleep for eight hours a night.” 

He wouldn't tell them why though. How it took him hours to fall asleep, how the night kept him up with all its quiet noises of the ship settling and the humming of the air ducts. He couldn't tell them how his mind would replay sounds from his time as a Galran prisoner, or how his own screams would wake him from his slumber. He rarely slept during the night cycles, and the sleep he could get was mostly from naps stolen during quiet moments in the day when he just couldn't push his body on anymore.

He smiled as he ate a bite of food. No, he would never tell them. They all had their own problems that were more important than his.

**Author's Note:**

> I was bored on a plane while writing this, and this is the first fanfic I've written in maybe seven years or more.


End file.
